From April 18-25, the government of Thailand hosted the 11^th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, whose theme was Synergies and Responses: Strategic Alliances in Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. The International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC), in collaboration with UNODC and UN Habitat, had the honor of organizing one of six official workshops at this years’ Congress, and also prepared the background paper (available online in the 6 UN languages on the UNODC's website). Entitled Strategies and Best Practices for Crime Prevention, in Particular in Relation to Urban Crime and Youth at Risk, this workshop brought together a mix of experts from the field, representing the different regions of the world. The workshop demonstrated practical examples of effective crime prevention strategies at various levels in the hopes of inspiring other organizations, cities, and countries to follow suit (pdf link).

 

The workshop opened with statements from Matti Joutsen, Chair of Committee 1 and of the workshop, Margaret Shaw, Director of Analysis and Exchange at ICPC, Paul Taylor of UN Habitat, and a keynote speech by Minister Christopher Martin Ellison - Minister for Justice and Customs, Australia. The important progress made in the field of crime prevention, notably the adoption of the ECOSOC Guidelines for cooperation and Technical Assistance in the Field of Urban Crime Prevention and the 2002 adoption of the Guidelines on the Prevention of Crime, was noted. UN Habitat projects that the trend of rapidly increasing urbanization will continue and by 2030, 60% of the world’s population (approximately 4.98 billion people, mostly poor) will be living in urban areas and by 2020, 1.5 billion people will be living in slums. Youth account for about half of the urban poor, making them especially vulnerable to involvement in crime (eg. recruitment into organized crime, drug and arms trade), or becoming victims of crime (eg. human trafficking, sexual exploitation).

 

The morning session consisted of three blocks which concentrated on urban crime prevention strategies. The first block, National strategies to promote and support crime prevention in urban areas, featured presentations from: Alejandra Lunecke of the University of Hurtado on Chile’s national Comuna Segura program; Rachel Neild of the Open Society Justice Initiative and Mayor Hugo Salómon Aedo of San Juan Bautista on local crime prevention in Peru; and Luc Devroe on Belgium’s Ministry of the Interior’s Security and Prevention Contracts. These presentations all demonstrated examples of local crime prevention initiatives which receive national support and address concerns identified by the local community, while ensuring their inclusion and participation in building local capacity. Partnerships should be multi-sectoral, including police and community organizations. Crime prevention strategies are more effective when they take into account both situational and social crime prevention components, and have mechanisms for evaluation directly embedded into the approaches. Also mentioned were some of the challenges that were encountered while implementing their strategies, notably lack of knowledge about implementing crime prevention strategies and lack of cooperation from local authorities. 

 

The second block, Urban partnerships for crime prevention, featured presentations of three case studies by Anna Mtani, coordinator Safer Cities Projects - Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; by Commissioner Miguel Coronel on the COPS system in the Philippines, and Mayor José de Filippi of Diadema, Brazil on the coty’s successful reduction of urban violence. These cases demonstrated very successful examples of cities working in partnership with local actors to empower the community, work together to prevent crime, and build trust between the community, government, and police (eg. by bringing the local government and police closer to the community, increasing police visibility, or decentralization). The importance of community participation and local capacity building, including sensitization, education and awareness campaigns, or action-orientated campaigns was highlighted. Strategies are most successful when they are diverse and multi-pronged, involving different sectors and actors while addressing the root causes of crime and taking into considerations the needs of women, youth, and other vulnerable groups. Diadema has done just that with their ten interventions strategies which ranges from the creation of a Municipal Department of Social Policies and Public Security to environmental and social crime prevention, and a disarmament campaign.

 

Block III, Crime prevention and social inclusion, heard presentations on the success of urban regeneration in the Warwick Junction area and elsewhere in the eThekwini Municipality (Durban), South Africa from Richard Dobson of the city’s iTrump initiative, and a community capacity-building programme by Mayor Eduardo Razafimanantena of the Municipality of Antananarivo, which was facilitated by the UN Volunteers Program. Each stressed the importance of community consultations both prior and throughout implementation of crime prevention strategies. They focused on promoting social inclusion and demonstrating their appreciation to the community for their participation, thereby encouraging reciprocity. The community should take ownership of and leadership roles in local crime prevention, as they are best able to identify the concerns of the community and appropriate strategies. Representatives of Australia, El Salvador, Italy, Sweden, Oman, Finland, France, Argentina, Morocco, United States of America and Samoa all made statements at the conclusion of the morning session.

 

The afternoon session of Workshop 3 focused on crime prevention strategies for at-risk youth. Block IV featured presentations on: integrated responses from England and Wales, including the Youth Inclusion Programme, by Brendan Finegan of the Youth Justice Board and Sohail Husain of Crime Concern; the Pathways to Prevention project in Queensland, Australia from Marie Leech of Mission Australia; and Nigeria’s Draft National Policy on Child Justice from Professor Adedokun Adeyemi of the University of Lagos, who worked on the draft, all centred on the block’s theme of Integrated and effective strategies for youth at risk. The block opened with a reminder that the problems we are discussing today have been the same for the last 200 years. Research-based integrated strategies covering many dimensions, focusing on capacity-building activities and skills development, and on promoting protective factors and social inclusion, and which include both parental and youth components, were emphasized. Developing strategies is not enough, access to these services must be ensured, as the Pathways to Prevention project does by offering universal services free of charge, including free childcare during the sessions, free transport to and from the facilities, and complimentary refreshments. Strategies must appeal to youth by including a sports/leisure component, for example. Crime prevention is cost-effective and continues to pay as youth turn into productive adults.

 

In Block V, Inclusive approaches for vulnerable groups of youth at risk, Radim Bures discussed the Czech Republic’s preventive approach to Youth sexual exploitation and trafficking; Marianna Olinger of Brazil discussed VIVA RIO’s and its COAV (Children and youth in organized armed violence) programme; and Ayako Otake of Children Without Boarders discussed the House for Youth project for street and trafficked youth in Cambodia and Vietnam. Crime prevention initiatives with specific target groups must consider the particular needs of the individuals from the onset. If a strategy is developed for trafficking victims, for example, then special provisions and support must be ensured, and training provided to interveners – including the police. Partnerships with NGOs are crucial where there is lack of trust in government authorities. When dealing with vulnerable youth, priority should be given to approaches that aim to increase protective factors while simultaneously decreasing risk factors, and which build the capacity of local authorities, NGOs, and the community to accept and empower youths, thereby facilitating their social inclusion and reintegration. Education and awareness-raising campaigns can make the public more amenable to the reintegration of youth.

 

Finally, in Block VI, Better exchange of knowledge and technical assistance, Themba Shabangu of CSIR South Africa and Laura Petrella of UN HABITAT presented their forthcoming Local Crime Prevention Toolkit; Kei Someda of Japan, formerly a UNAFEI professor, discussed Effective measures for training needs and technical assistance; and Slawomir Redo of UNODC discussed the Shape of future technical assistance. These presentations reminded us that we must build upon the knowledge we have acquired while leaving room for transferability and adaptation to local circumstances. The conclusions and recommendations stressed that it is important to continue to work in multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary partnerships and to embed monitoring and evaluation components directly into crime prevention strategies. Strategies should be evidence-based, taking into consideration local needs and capacity, and the needs of youth, women, and vulnerable populations, and explicitly embedded into legislation. Initiatives should be practice-oriented and training and toolkits user-friendly. We are reminded that urbanization will continue with the world’s poor growing exponentially. It is imperative that we begin building the capacity of most of the world to adequately deal with such changes and remember the pertinence of the phrase “think globally, act locally”. Representatives from the United States of America, Indonesia, Egypt and Turkey all made statements at the end of the afternoon session, concluding a highly successful workshop.  

 

ICPC put together a compendium of promising practices for the occasion, featuring several of the projects discussed during the workshop. A complete version of the compendium is available online. Presentations are also available on the ICPC website and a webcast of the workshop is available on UNODC’s website. ICPC will be publishing the ensemble of papers from the workshop later this year.